Updated: 5:45 p.m. ET
(Bloomberg) -- Irma swept over islands in the Caribbean and barreled toward Puerto Rico with Florida in its sights as the Category 5 hurricane threatens to become the most expensive storm in U.S. history.
The threat of a strike in Florida over the weekend and early next week has increased, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane watches could be issued for parts of the Florida Keys and the Florida peninsula on Thursday. Barclays Plc has estimated insured losses in a worst-case scenario from the storm at $130 billion.
|'Significant threat'
“The chances for this missing the U.S. are going way down,” said Rick Knabb, hurricane expert with the Weather Channel in Atlanta and until last year the director of the National Hurricane Center. “This is a very significant threat to Florida and the southeast U.S.”
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